Capital A Berhad and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia have signed a letter of intent to explore the development and testing of a ringgit-denominated stablecoin, joining a growing list of firms looking to build regulated digital-asset rails for payments and settlements.
The project would be pursued through Bank Negara Malaysia’s Digital Asset Innovation Hub, a central bank-led platform that allows industry participants to co-develop and trial digital-asset solutions in a controlled environment and helps inform the evolution of rules around such products.
Under the proposed arrangement, Standard Chartered Malaysia would act as the issuer of the MYR stablecoin, providing the banking infrastructure and related capabilities.
Capital A and companies across its ecosystem would work with the bank to design, test, and potentially pilot “wholesale” use cases, including enterprise-grade applications rather than consumer trading.
Capital A, best known as the parent of low-cost carrier AirAsia, has been repositioning itself as a broader travel and digital-services group.
The companies said the stablecoin concept could be applied to areas such as real-time internal settlement flows, liquidity and treasury management, and programmable payments across business operations.
Standard Chartered Malaysia said the work aligns with its broader digital assets strategy and would focus on building products that meet institutional requirements for assurance and governance.
The companies said they will next assess technical design, regulatory parameters, and commercial viability within the central bank’s innovation hub before deciding whether to proceed to a pilot.
A ringgit stablecoin trial, if advanced, could signal Malaysia’s preference for local-currency tokenisation frameworks anchored by regulated banks rather than offshore issuers.
The structure also points to a “closed-loop” starting point, enterprise settlement and treasury, where compliance, limit,s and participant controls are easier to enforce.
Key watchpoints will be governance, reserve management, interoperability with existing payment systems, and whether pilots move beyond proofs-of-concept into repeatable, cost-saving workflows.
